Pep Guardiola has spoken out against killings across the world, including in Sudan, where a paramilitary group backed by the United Arab Emirates, which in effect owns Manchester City, is embroiled in a civil war that has cost more than 150,000 lives.
Guardiola named Sudan when talking about conflicts where innocent people were dying. War crimes are said to have been carried out by both sides in the conflict. The vice‑president of the UAE, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, owns City, where Guardiola is the manager.
“Never in the history of humanity have we had the info in front of our eyes more clearly than now,” Guardiola said. “The genocide in Palestine, what happened in Ukraine, what happened all around the world – in Sudan, everywhere. What happened in front of us? Do you want to see it? It’s our problem as human beings.”
The Rapid Support Forces in Sudan have been backed by the UAE, a position the Gulf state denies despite evidence compiled by the UN, independent experts and reporters. The RSF has carried out mass killings in the Sudanese city El Fasher.
In November the UAE admitted to errors in policy after reputational damage over its support for the RSF. Anwar Gargash, the UAE senior diplomatic envoy, said the UAE and others had been wrong not to impose sanctions on the instigators of the 2021 coup – led jointly by the RSF and the army – that overthrew Sudan’s transitional civilian government.
Mansour bought City in September 2008 and Guardiola became the manager in 2016. Last Thursday Guardiola spoke at a charity event in Barcelona about the need to protect children in Palestine, prompting questions before City’s Carabao Cup tie against Newcastle on Wednesday about why he was vocal on humanitarian issues.
“It is about a better place for humanity,” he said. “The people who run away from their countries, go in the sea and then go on a boat to get rescued: don’t ask if he is right or wrong, rescue him. It is about a human being. After, we can agree, criticise. But people dying, you have to help them.
“Protecting the human being is the only thing we have. Right now, we kill each other, for what? When I see the images, I am sorry, it hurts. It hurts me. That is why in every position I can help speaking up to be a better society, I will try and be there. It is for my kids, my families, for you. For all of you and your families as well and the kids.
“From my point of view, the justice: you have to talk. Otherwise it will just move on. Look what happened in the United States of America, Renée Good and Alex Pretti have been killed … Tell me how you can defend that?”
After referencing the shootings of Good and Pretti by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis, Guardiola said: “There is not a perfect society, nowhere is perfect, I am not perfect, but we have to work to be better.”
